The Farmers Fight

Thanks Wyllow3.

Just to point out that farmers, like many small businesses, are self employed. They do not get holiday pay, or sick pay or company pensions. Some have expensive critical illness insurance in case they are unable to work. And, if they can afford it, they try to pay into private pensions. During bad years these safeguards tend to go by the board.
They work ridiculously long hours - I know several who milked cows on their wedding days. And there is no such thing as maternity/paternity leave for farmers.
On the whole they just get on with it without serious complaint - but this tax change has made them feel totally under valued.

I can understand that eddiecat for those on the margins working like that. Is it a problem is will the next generation be willing to do this on small farms, and it's not just related to the IT issue.

I agree Wyllow.

The fact that farming is a hard job and the IHT tax issue are not related IMO.

Wyllow3

I can understand that eddiecat for those on the margins working like that. Is it a problem is will the next generation be willing to do this on small farms, and it's not just related to the IT issue.

So we have to ask ourselves Why.

I think, reading some posts on this thread, the answer is obvious.
Farmers are undervalued, derided and considered to be the wealthy elite.
A view shared by Rachel Reeves.

Why are people labeled as virtue signaling? Such a silly phrase.

Signaling to who? Nobody cares, nobody is listening.

NotSpaghetti

Casdon I don't think it's choice that makes people buy cheap mass-produced chicken or the cheap imported onions (I saw these in the supermarket last week).

I think it's mainly price. It's been going on so long that many families no longer like "wild" smoked salmon for example- having bought the blander farmed variety which is so much cheaper, many don't even buy a free range chicken anymore as they buy "chicken breasts" which are also blander. I think we are getting used to cheap (and bland) and that becomes normal.

The supermarket drives down prices paid to farmers and people respond by buying the cheaper items. Then they get accustomed to the cheap item and that becomes the "norm"

This is just my view. I've not read any studies on it.

But I think it’s likely that your view is correct NS.

Except that in the very poor area where I worked for many years, I think it was highly unlikely any of the parents of children in my school bought salmon, wild, farmed, or even tinned. Pizza and oven chips was the more likely dinner for many of my pupils, or McDonalds, or fish fingers and oven chips. If they were lucky they might have got a roast dinner on Sunday (but I’d guess it would not have been a free range chicken!)

Well I think it could be an issue on the margins, but I think it's past of a bigger issue about food production and food pricing going into the future.
One generation - ours - has seen the rise of cheap food and supermarket dominance and food flown in.

(replying to Lizzie)

Jeanathome

Why are people labeled as virtue signaling? Such a silly phrase.

Signaling to who? Nobody cares, nobody is listening.

Really?
I think plenty of people listen to Greta Thunberg.

Excellent post eddiecat.

Allira

Wyllow3

I can understand that eddiecat for those on the margins working like that. Is it a problem is will the next generation be willing to do this on small farms, and it's not just related to the IT issue.

So we have to ask ourselves Why.

I think, reading some posts on this thread, the answer is obvious.
Farmers are undervalued, derided and considered to be the wealthy elite.
A view shared by Rachel Reeves.

On the contrary. it's made me think very hard about the issues of small farms and larger landowners and food pricing - no deriding here.

There is a wealthy elite and there are the pretty comfortably off as well as struggling small farms.

Reeves is bringing in what should have been done some time ago, which is those who can afford it pay their way re land ownership assets.

I think the discussion lies properly in the levels set on IT not the principle.

madalene

Jeanathome

Why are people labeled as virtue signaling? Such a silly phrase.

Signaling to who? Nobody cares, nobody is listening.

Really?
I think plenty of people listen to Greta Thunberg.

But it’s pointless Greta Thunberg, or Just Stop Oil, or anyone else who likes to virtue signal, protesting about carbon emissions if they’re not prepared to eat British food

How would this work if she is in Sweden?

She can eat Swedish food. I would have thought that much was self evident. What she shouldn’t be eating, given her message, is kiwis and avocados, and maybe she stands by her principles. But the point is, lots of Gransnetters tell us all about their green habits, but may very well be eating foods flown in from all over the world. Recycling your cardboard boxes that your kiwis are packed in isn’t going to make up for the air miles from bringing in the kiwis from New Zealand.

Wyllow3

*namsnanny*, it's not a like for like comparison as regards the Netherlands and the US food production.

The Netherlands has very high EU food/farming standards and
recent policy includes incentives for small and medium farms
(since they too feel large scale farms not the only way to go) Bit of a read, but all in here
agriculture.ec.europa.eu/news/commission-approves-cap-strategic-plan-netherlands-2022-12-13_en#:~:text=€17.5%20million%20will%20be,“at%20a%20glance”%20documents.

It's not a like for like comparison ...

Who said it was? I was, pointing to the financial groups who were buying up land suitable for agriculture, and taking it out of use.
Primarily to enable them to have a monopoly on food production.
Thereby taking the power away from consumers to 'choose' for them selves

Handing power to un elected bureaucrats, or banks or so called 'philanthropists' is a dangerous situation to put a country into, and needs much thought.

The link didn't give much info and was possibly out of date, as it was said last night that even the French farmers were querying the need for unelected members making decisions about farming.
Which seemed quite a turn around to me.

madalene it's true about the pizza and fish fingers etc as even cheap food is not available to all - yes, smoked salmon was not a great example(!) - but I know that my mother-in-law (who is predominantly a Waitrose shopper!) no longer buys "proper" smoked salmon and buys two packs of the cheapest one every week. She started doing this because it's inexpensive.
I bought some (expensive) better quality, wild smoked salmon for her birthday and she was amazed that she didn't like it. It was too "rich"... I suppose we learn to like what we buy!

I've thought about this "blanding" of foods a lot as my daughter-in-law buys a lot of chicken breasts and doesn't care about the provenance even though they can afford to. My son-in-law however only used to buy meats directly from the farm.

I notice the sweeter, less distinct apples are in the supermarkets summer or winter and the strawberries are cheap enough to import all year. The newer varieties are less tasty but look more perfect than the old ones.

Even cheese... cheap cheese is normally quite bland. More artisan types are more expensive but taste so much fuller/rounded.

Someone earlier was comparing grocery shopping here to France. In France I expect they are only just starting out on the mass production "blanding" of products but if they don't demand quality food then future generations may well shop as we do in the UK.

Jeanathome

madalene

Jeanathome

Why are people labeled as virtue signaling? Such a silly phrase.

Signaling to who? Nobody cares, nobody is listening.

Really?
I think plenty of people listen to Greta Thunberg.

But it’s pointless Greta Thunberg, or Just Stop Oil, or anyone else who likes to virtue signal, protesting about carbon emissions if they’re not prepared to eat British food

How would this work if she is in Sweden?

Just Stop Oil, or anyone else
Who presumably live in the UK.

From DEFR:

The government will invest …

£5 billion into farming over the next two years – the largest amount ever directed towards sustainable food production, rural economic growth and nature’s recovery in our country’s history

I suppose farmers will be happy to accept a share of £5billion of taxpayers money!

I thin we can predict who will get the lions share of that £5billion.

It won't be the small and medium size farms.

LizzieDrip

From DEFR:

The government will invest …

£5 billion into farming over the next two years – the largest amount ever directed towards sustainable food production, rural economic growth and nature’s recovery in our country’s history

I suppose farmers will be happy to accept a share of £5billion of taxpayers money!

It's how they tell 'em.

Steep cuts in direct payments to farmers in England are probably the price that had to be paid for Defra to be able to maintain the agricultural budget, NFU president Tom Bradshaw has suggested.

The 30 October Budget set agricultural spending by Defra at £2.6bn in 2025 and £2.4bn in 2026 – compared with the current £2.4bn.

It was also announced that delinked payments to farmers (previously the Basic Payment Scheme or BPS) would be cut by 76% compared with the 2020 base level, taking a previous £30,000 payment to just £7,200, with no payments above that level.

MaizieD

I thin we can predict who will get the lions share of that £5billion.

It won't be the small and medium size farms.

What they don’t say is NON of it is to aid food production, it all goes to encourage birds and butterflies, that is what the population think is important
Food doesn’t matter

David49

MaizieD

I thin we can predict who will get the lions share of that £5billion.

It won't be the small and medium size farms.

What they don’t say is NON of it is to aid food production, it all goes to encourage birds and butterflies, that is what the population think is important
Food doesn’t matter

Wildlife and the ecosystem are important and small farmers know that.

The larger, industrial food producing factories aka farms have wrecked a lot of the ecosystems which are co-dependent with farming and food production.

The decisions made in this budget are just the start of it. What next?

Allira

David49

MaizieD

I thin we can predict who will get the lions share of that £5billion.

It won't be the small and medium size farms.

What they don’t say is NON of it is to aid food production, it all goes to encourage birds and butterflies, that is what the population think is important
Food doesn’t matter

Wildlife and the ecosystem are important and small farmers know that.

The larger, industrial food producing factories aka farms have wrecked a lot of the ecosystems which are co-dependent with farming and food production.

Absolutely, Allira 👏

There has to be a balance between environmental issues and food production.

In the post war drive to increase farming productivity I recall the small hedged fields of my home county, Essex, had the hedges ripped out to turn them into larger fields in which large farm machinery could be used more cost effectively, as well as increasing farm acreage.

The result? Essex's light sandy topsoil blew off those huge fields with no hedges to contain it and to act as a windbreak...

I don't know what happened to rectify it, I left just as the light was dawning...

Most farmers won’t be liable for inheritance tax. This is aimed at wealthy landowners who have been buying-up farming land. Many of whom are in the aristocracy. Jeremy Clarkson, multi millionaire is one of the ‘poor souls; who is bleating on about how mean the tax is 🙄 For those rich landowners who will be effected, their inheritance tax has been set at half that of everyone else. Our public services have been smashed to pieces in the last 15 years. Funding our NHS is much more important to me than than the tears of the super rich www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/17/farmers-have-hoarded-land-for-too-long-inheritance-tax-will-bring-new-life-to-rural-britain?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other